Wave of the Future
by Alexandra Spar
Summary: Isn't it charming that the Island of Sodor has a functioning steam railway? Not every visitor thinks so.
1. Chapter 1

It was a perfect spring day.

Birds sang in the trees; the rails sang harmony, that strange humming, almost twittering sound that nobody who has ever heard it can quite forget.

It was, in fact, a Saturday in May, one of the finest Mays Sodor had ever seen. The sea all around the island was bright blue, with just enough wind to amuse the waterskiiers and the few people who still ran sailing dinghies out of the harbour. Mostly it was sightseers these days: the tourist trade ran well, with the old-fashioned railway a very noticeable attraction. People came from all over Britain to see the old engines, and to ride in their trains, and hear again the sounds—and smell again the scents—of their own childhoods.

Sir Topham Hatt ran the line extremely well, everyone had to admit. While the man looked like the worst sort of Dickensian portly villain, he had a real feeling for steam, and he was careful, for the most part, of his engines and their well-being.

What was particularly wonderful for the inhabitants of Sodor—and for the railway employees, and for their tourist passengers—was that Hatt's engines were _alive_. They had personalities—hell, they had names. They felt and saw and existed.

Most of the tourists, dazzled by the brass and gleaming paint and the constant activity and bustle of a running steam railway, didn't realize this. But the people who interacted with the engines, those lucky enough to drive them and fire their fireboxes, oh, you better believe _they_ knew. They were particularly fortunate. All over the country old railways were being refurbished and run as tourist traps, but none of _those_ engineers, firemen, conductors, or repairmen had an actual conscious being to deal with: when something went wrong on other railways, they had to repair a vast and complicated machine, but on Sodor they had someone who could tell them exactly where it hurt, and who could comply with their requests. As a result, for the most part, Sodor's engines were in the absolute pink of health.

Except one.

On that particular Saturday, Henry was moderately well-pleased with the universe. He'd been allowed to pull the Arrow passenger train, not as fast or as famous as Gordon's express, but still important—and it was very full this afternoon. Just about two hundred tourists had crowded into the carriages, as the steel Arrow plaque was affixed just under Henry's smokestack and his driver and fireman made their final checks.

He was never really well. Built from stolen and misdrawn plans, mocked by his fellow engines for his inability to raise and keep steam, Henry had never been one of Hatt's finest. Still the Fat Controller didn't take him off the lines, didn't retire him, or have him scrapped; Henry thought he was pretty lucky, all things considered. This morning some of his boiler tubes had hurt sharply as he began to raise steam, but he'd thought nothing of it; he'd had much worse pains before. It was doubtless just the change in temperature making him ache.

They had come out of the big station right on time, gleeful puffs of coalsmoke following one another out of Henry's funnel, his driver keeping a gentle hand on the throttle as his fireman shoveled coal into the roaring confines of his firebox. His waterglasses stood at full: his press gauge showed high normal. Nothing at all was wrong, and, for once feeling decently well and high-powered, Henry really _enjoyed _the ride up the Long Hill.

They passed the tunnels where once he had refused to come out into the rain and had been blocked up there for a month or so before he'd been needed—the same tunnel where, a year or so later, he'd been menaced by a circus elephant—and crested the long hill, Henry's fire burning bright and hot and clean. All systems were green across the board.

Except that nagging ache in a few of his boiler tubes, just where they touched the crownsheet. Only a few of them, and they were just under the waterline, where water sloshed back and forth as he climbed hills, forcing the metal to expand and contract as it heated and cooled. They ached like….Henry had no simile, really, but his driver had had a bad tooth extracted some months before, and he could liken this ache to that low unbearable pain in his driver's jaw. It hadn't hurt before, and it hurt now, and yet he was so close, so very close, to the next station: perhaps he could hang on till then and let them know while the passengers got off, and apologize, and be shunted to a sidetrack and wait for…oh, lord, Gordon, sneering all the way…to shove him back down the hill and home.

He was just ruminating on the best way to tell his driver he hurt when the pain suddenly went from a low sick ache to a bright hot drilling agony—and he cried out, unable to stop the cry, just as six of the gauges in his cabin went FUBAR and the powertrain lost forward momentum. It wasn't just a moment of agony, either—he could feel the tubes where they had broken, spilling superheated flue gases into his boiler, and each rivet tightening as it took the strain, and the driver's yelled command: open main safeties, dump, dump, _dump_ before he blows us all to kingdom come….

Henry was still crying out, a low strengthless little cry, as they coasted to a stop on the line and his men scrambled out to lock open the safeties and clear out his firebox before any more heat could be shunted into his wounded boiler. Clouds of steam rose around them, and he could barely see the rails: all he knew was that something inside him was broken, badly broken, and it hurt so _badly_…and then he could just about hear the driver yelling to the conductor, and the conductor announcing a breakdown and reaching for his walkie to alert the stations ahead and behind: train incapacitated, brokedown train, request assistance, caution flag the whole damn stretch of track.

The pain throbbed and suddenly burst in a red flower inside Henry's mind, and he drifted away.

"I don't have to tell you," said Sir Topham Hatt, "how disappointed I am. You know perfectly well this was supposed to be a spring outing for hundreds of high-paying tourists and _you let this happen_."

Henry's driver, a man named James Hudson, nodded. "I know, sir. But we had absolutely no warning the tubes were about to blow. Henry would have told us if he'd felt anything. I know him, I've driven him for years. None of us had a clue, sir."

Hatt paced, slamming a fist down to the desk. "I can't keep having this happen. I thought the new coal would sort him out. I thought the damn rebuild would have sorted him out. What more am I supposed to do, Hudson? What the hell else is there? He's a lemon."

Hudson kept his face straight, with an effort. "Sir, uh, with respect, his innards haven't been rebuilt as well as they might. It's still not easy to raise steam even on a morning as mild as this, and he has trouble on steep grades. What he needs is a brand new set of tubes and sheets. Set him properly right."

"And I can afford that?" Hatt stared at him, two pink spots burning on his cheeks. "Damn it. All right, Hudson, you're running with the regular commuter lines this week. You did decently well in the emergency."

"Sir," said James Hudson, and nodded, and put his ticking cap back on his head. You didn't stick around when the boss was in one of these moods.

He left Hatt's office and crossed to Shed B, where Henry had been pushed by Diesel. It was probably a good thing that he'd been unconscious while this happened. His beautiful green boiler was flayed open along its rivets for half its length, and workmen crawled and scampered over the rustbrown innards. The broken flue pipes had been taken out, and examined, and the break was determined to be due to heatstress crystallization. At that point, it had been necessary to examine the rest of his pipes, every square inch, and replace any that seemed to have any kind of weakness.

Hudson knew that Henry was hurting. He'd driven the green engine for three years now, just as he'd told Hatt, and he knew him as an old friend. He climbed up into the cab, and ran his hands over the familiar controls. "You'll be all right, Henry. You'll be fine. They're checking you over now to see if anything else is apt to break. You'll be fine."

Henry didn't reply: but the whole multi-ton frame of the engine shuddered on its wheels.

Some time later, in a different darkness, voices spoke to one another.

"That was excellent."

"You think? I mean, it totally just looked like an old boiler break. No sign of anything else."

"Perfect. Just what I wanted. We took that one, the lemon, out first: nobody'll suspect. Now go after the others. First the, what's it called, the red one. Little bastard, but fast. Corrosion in the tubes, or, hmm, or buildup of foul gases in the smokebox that could explode. You know how to do it."

"I know, boss. It'll be done by tomorrow morning."

"God, that was perfect, having the diesel drag the hulk away. Absolutely perfect. You're doing a very special job, my friend."

"Good to hear, boss. Good to hear."


	2. Chapter 2

The previous evening had been full of whispering. News of Henry's breakdown had quickly made its way around the various branch lines, and when the engines got back to the Shed that night there were rumours already flying. Henry was pretending to be ill so as not to do his share of the work; Henry was to be scrapped; Henry was going back to Crewe…

Gordon was the last one in, that night. He caught a glimpse of the green engine in the repair shed just as he was shunted off the main line, and had to admit he was shocked by the great wound halfway down his boiler, where the men had peeled the heavy plates and lagging away like so much tinfoil. Henry's face had no colour in it at all, and his eyes were closed.

"….bet he's just faking again, cause it's supposed to rain tomorrow, and you know how he gets about rain, says it spoils his paint and gets into his workings and gives him funnel-ache…" James was unmistakeable.

"Now, don't be uncharitable. You know Henry's been really ill before." That was Edward, Gordon knew, in the darkness.

"I heard his boiler had burst!" Thomas, by the voice's pitch. "That means he's done for—oh, no. Henry can't be done for, he's, he's a Big Engine—"

Edward again. "Don't worry, youngster. Henry's tough; he'll be perfectly all right."

The younger engines—Thomas and Percy—talked amongst themselves. Gordon, feeling his metal cooling with a soft pink-pink-pink noise, found himself thinking again about the green engine's history. He'd…never really been very well. Coughing and wheezing on steep grades and cold mornings; losing steam, countless incidences of firebox choking and smokebox clogs; boiler sludge buildups that crippled him with cramping pains; water-tank leaks…oh, the list went on and on. Even after Henry's rebuild it hadn't ended. He remembered in particular the time he'd had Henry's coal by mistake, and oh, how good _that_ had felt, but he remembered vividly coming back to Henry—gamely struggling along barely able to breathe through his wretchedly congested firebox, coughing dreadfully—and giving up his own speed record to switch tenders for Henry's sake. Time and again that sort of thing had happened. Gordon found himself wondering just how many times it _could_ happen before the other engine really could take no more.

Ancient Toby, beside him, seemed to read his mind; he murmured, softly, for Gordon's benefit alone, "I don't like to think of it, but maybe the Diesel has a point."

"What's that?"

"Maybe we _are_ archaic. Our time's drawing short."

Gordon snorted. "Don't say things like that; you'll frighten the youngsters. You know perfectly well the Fat Controller won't let anything happen to us, or our railway."

Toby didn't say anything more. Even the younger ones quieted, after a while. There was an oppressive atmosphere in the shed that night, and Gordon found it very difficult to sleep.

He did, however, drift off in the wee hours of the morning, and therefore he didn't notice when the man in the black balaclava neatly slid through one of the back shed windows and padded down to the floor, nor when he brought over a ladder and poured something into the sleeping James' safety valve, nor yet when he replaced the ladder and clambered back the way he'd come. The open window catch banged softly in the night, just as it always did, and the engines slept on without any knowledge of their brief visitor.

The Fat Controller was there in person that morning, Sir Topham Hatt himself, wanting an update on Henry's condition. While the rest of the engines were being stoked and woken slowly to working life, the men in Shed B had already been at work half an hour at least. The foreman wiped his hands with a rag marginally less greasy than they were, speaking to the Controller out of earshot of the desperately sick engine.

"It's not good, Sir. The crownsheet's weakened where the snap occurred, and at least thirteen percent of the rest of the flues are crystallizing. I'd not dare bring him up to a quarter of rated press even with the broken ones blocked off."

Hatt didn't curse, but his face went a shade redder. "Blast and damnation. I can least afford to lose him now, in the middle of the damn tourist season---All right. Call Murdoch back from the freight runs. I'll need someone to take over Henry's work while he's ill….how long do you estimate it'll be?"

"Sir….I dunno if I was clear. He needs a whole new set of innards. I can't even run him enough to get him out of the shed on his own, without threatening to blow the whole yard sky-high. This has been building for some time, I think."

Hatt's glare was a bit like liquid oxygen—but then he seemed to slump. "Damn, damn, _damn_. All right, then. I'll have to raise fares and borrow." Almost as an afterthought, but so quietly the foreman knew it was heartfelt, he added, "….is he in much pain?"

"Yes, sir." His voice was quiet, as well. "We're doing everything we can to ease it. I think he'll be better once we grind out the remains of the old flues and just clean him out."

"Do it. Take anyone you need who's not working on something else. This is high priority, understand?"

The foreman nodded, still wiping at his hands, as Hatt strode away. He had that peculiar floating gait that many small fat men have, and he looked like a rather determined penguin.

He'd only just got back to Henry and directed his men to break out the torches when a scream shattered the relative peace of a work morning. It wasn't the shriek of a whistle, or a human in surprise: this was the cry of a being in desperate pain.

_What now_? thought the foreman. _What else can possibly go wrong?_

James stood barely outside of the shed, waste steam shooting helplessly out of what was obviously a burst main safety. He'd got just that far before it blew, and that in itself made zero sense: he'd been perfectly fine the day before, and the valve assembly itself wasn't exactly ancient.

More alarming still, he was in terrible pain. All of them had burst a safety or two in their time, and it hurt a bit when the valve broke, but nothing like this. His driver and fireman were trying to calm him down, trying to find out what had caused it, but all he could do was whimper that it hurt, it hurt, it was _burning_…

Sir Topham Hatt was _not_ having a good morning. He arrived on the double and demanded explanations, as if there were any to give, and the repairman who'd clambered atop James' bright red boiler shouted down that it looked corroded.

_Corroded?_ Hatt thought. _Can't be. That's a solid brass valve and it was new six months ago, what on earth's going on here?_

"Take him back to the repair shed!" he yelled over the hiss of escaping steam. "I'll have—" and he trailed off. No, he couldn't have Henry pull James' trains today, could he. "I'll call in the twins. Just get him fixed!"

James, pushed into the repair shed beside Henry by one of the shunters, whimpered. He'd never felt anything like this—he'd had breakdowns, of course, what engine hadn't? but this was different. It felt as if someone had dribbled acid right down inside the workings of his safety valve, and it _burned_ like nothing he'd ever felt before.

He could dimly feel the workmen moving over him, his firebox being quenched, the uncomfortable pressure against the wounded valve fading as they exhausted his boiler in a cloud of wasted steam. Oh it _hurt_, it hurt, and his pride hurt him almost as badly: he'd been all ready to go, to take Henry's trains for him and show off his bright paint and his cheerful strength, and then a few wheelturns out of the shed the pain had struck in a bright arrow and he couldn't move at all…

He sat there amid the clouds of rising steam, with men swarming all over him, tapping and clanking with tools, and felt about as sorry for himself as he ever had. Everyone had _seen_.

Somewhere away to his left a very weary, tired, pain-tightened voice made itself known. "Hang on, youngster. It'll be all right."

_Henry?_ James thought. "H-Henry?"

"It's me. Just be brave, James. A burst safety isn't so bad; you'll be up and running in no time." Oh but Henry sounded so ill, hoarse and tired with his own pain.

"Henry, you're going to be all right, aren't you? Aren't you?" James was frightened. He wasn't often frightened.

"I'll be fine." Henry coughed. "Don't worry about me, kid. Just get well and get back to work. You'll be all right."

James fell silent, but he could still feel the other's nearness through the rising steam and confusion. After a moment he tried again. "Henry, I…"

"Shh," Henry said. "Get well, and keep an eye on the others. All of the others. Do that for me, James."

"I-I will," he said, unsteadily, and then fell silent again as they did something particularly unpleasant to his valve seats. What had he meant, keep an eye on them? Did Henry think something bigger was going on?

Work that day on the Sodor railways was a little different from usual. Douglas and Dougal had been called in to run Henry's and James' trains for them, and little bits of information about the two engines' conditions flickered back and forth whenever the engines met one another at stations. Gordon had already left the Shed when the news of James' indisposition reached him, and he was inexorably reminded of Toby's words the night before. _Archaic. On our way out_.

He _hooshhhh_es steam angrily, and when the signal turns he yanks the Express out of the station with a lot less care than usual. First Henry, who was always ill, and now James, who never was? Who would be next—little Thomas with his cheery peep-peep whistle? Kind Edward, older than most of them, who could defuse an argument with a quiet word? Percy? Gordon himself? He stormed up the hill faster than his driver really wanted him to, running to beat not a speed record but a low creeping suspicion, and found at least a little relief in sheer functioning. He at least wasn't affected.

Yet.

"Too obvious."

"Yes boss. I just thought—you know—corrosion, it'd look natural—"

"I don't care what you thought. Give it a day or so, and then when you go after the antique you damn well take more care, all right? Nothing that can be traced. Or you won't be, either."

"A-all right, boss. Got you."

"See that you do."


	3. Chapter 3

The rest of that day had passed without noticeable incident. Douglas and Dougal had been pulled into service to take Henry's and James' trains; nothing particularly untoward had occurred on the routes other than the passengers' murmurs about the engine switchover. "Two down in two days? Can't be right. Must be some kind of political thing," said one regular passenger who took the Express.

"These old things? I'm amazed they still work at all!"

"I heard they were dangerous," said another passenger. "Explosive. Like, y'know, bad."

Neither of the Scottish twins said a word; but they hissed steam unhappily from their exhaust valves as they worked the day's hauling.

In Shed B, the workmen had ground out the last of Henry's broken flues, and were removing the weakened ones. New boiler shellplates had been delivered from the foundry, after undergoing serious testing to ensure they were satisfactorily sound; and the new flue sheets and tubes were scheduled to arrive in another day. In the meantime, he sat in his stall and shivered, slightly, every now and then: the only intimation that he was awake and aware.

Lady Hatt came down in midafternoon to visit him and James. James was feeling ever so much better with the removal of the damaged safety valve and the cleanout of the valve seat: they were getting ready to install his new valve assembly. She smiled up at him.

"Hello, James. I'm sorry you're under the weather, but it looks as if you'll soon be back to your old self."

The red engine was, as ever, extremely susceptible to attention; and he smiled at her. "I'm feeling better, thank you, marm. I don't know _what_ happened to me—but they say they've almost finished and I'll be just as fast as ever."

Lady Hatt smiled back, and patted his buffer. "I'm very glad. And I'm sure you'll do us proud, James; you always have."

James couldn't help whistling a little. Just to himself.

Alicia Farnham Hatt was a clever woman: nobody could really have managed to survive marriage to Sir Topham Hatt without being clever enough to keep herself busy whilst he was out on his railway, dealing with those things that needed to be dealt with; and she was also a kind woman. These two things are rarer than one might think.

She took aside the foreman when he climbed down from James' boiler. "What was it? Simple failure?"

The foreman winced. "No, marm. I'm afraid not, but we haven't got results back from the metallurgy lab. If you asked me I'd say it looked a bit like someone had a go at the valve with something corrosive as he…as heck, marm. I don't understand it, though—why would anybody do a thing like that? Specially to James."

Lady Hatt sighed. She didn't say "there are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio," but she was tempted. "All right. Thank you. Do you mind if I stay around a little?"

"Be our guest, marm." He was clearly in a hurry to get back to work. "But, um, be careful."

…

Hudson was in Henry's cab when she approached, silently stroking the polished brass regulator lever, the reversing lever, the brake wheels. He looked up as she approached, and then straightened in a hurry and whipped off his engineer's cap. "Lady Hatt, marm?"

She swung herself up into the cab and took the fireman's seat. "What happened?"

He told her, as best he could remember. The run up the hill and then the sudden shriek of pain and the cry of tortured metal, the hurry to dump, dump, _dump_ the boiler pressure before any more flues snapped and gave up their superheated gasses to the wounded tank.

"They've almost finished with it, for now. It looks like they can get away with just reinforcing the tubesheet where the flues exit the firebox, and regrinding and replacing those that broke. He won't be _well_, but he'll work a bit. In case he's desperately needed."

"Why isn't he already on his way to Swindon or Crewe?" Lady Hatt asked, frowning.

"Orders. We're to do repairs here. No publicity of any sort of engine damage is to be handed out to the rest of the world."

Henry, around them, gave his little helpless shiver again; and Lady Hatt sighed and ran her hand along the curve of his main steam gauge. She got up, and levered open his firebox door, and had a look inside: and tried hard not to wince.

"I know," said Hudson. "But orders is orders, marm. I can't….make them take him away for proper work."

"You may not be able to," she said, "but I might."

…

Now, as night was closing in around the Shed, none of the engines had anything to talk about other than the fact that James had blown a safety less than ten yards out. The younger ones chattered excitedly, wondering what had happened and why, and if this was another of James' plots to get attention; but Gordon and Edward said nothing at all.

…

Two days later, Henry was having his new boilerplates riveted into place, and James was back on the rails, puffing happily along and pulling his trains with no difficulty whatsoever. It was a nice, clear, chilly morning, and Edward was ready to get to work.

His fireman had arrived quite a lot earlier and begun the process of building his fire, and by the time his driver arrived and checked him over, looking for any loose bolts, any cracked seals, anything at all that might cause trouble, there was a decent head of steam. It was never easy, both men knew, to manage an old engine with these newfangled coals; but with care and with skill it was possible to make sure that they ran as efficiently and quickly as possible.

Water levels at high normal and steam press just below safety cutoff, Edward's driver pushed his reverse lever full forward and opened the regulator, and he sighed deeply as the steam rushed to his cylinders, and began to move. He enjoyed these early mornings, being able to see the last of the night's mist burning off from the valleys, the slant-light of a new day throwing long blue shadows over the fields and forests.

Once coupled to the coaches, they waited for their mark; and now when Edward moved off his safeties had already begun to hiss. Coming out of the Shed and up the first hill took a lot of power, and the reverse lever was as far forward as it could be, letting his pistons travel as far as they could; but as he accelerated through thirty and then forty miles an hour his driver notched him down a bit, saving steam, letting expansion do its work. He was running beautifully, not a care in the world.

Two stations out, his driver fished out an egg-salad sandwich from his lunchpail and let the levers go for a little while; this stretch of road had no surprises. He joked now and then that Edward could run it himself without a driver. They sailed along, Edward's exhaust puffing cheery clouds out in a purring stream as his fireman shoveled and kept the water-cocks open to the tender pump, balancing water and heat with the skill of long practice. They worked just as they always had.

So, too, did the pins holding together Edward's piston linkage. It had been impossible to see, in the Shed, but the grease covering one of the bolts securing the piston to the front drive wheel was not just ordinary oil but a particularly unpleasant sort of corrosive jelly; now, as sunlight and warmth fell over the joint, that jelly began its rather insidious work. His driver had conscientiously oiled each of his joints, and thought no more of it when one of his forefingers started to itch and burn a bit—sometimes oil did that if you got it on a scrape. He had forgotten it utterly.

By the time they reached the halfway point of the route, the stuff had begun to pit and burn the surface of the pin; and by the time they got to the terminus and shunted around to come back again, the pin was honeycombed and half-rotten. In itself this would not have spelled disaster, but in a run like this one, with steep grades and sharp curves, well…

It happened very quickly. One moment they were steaming along to beat the band, Edward's whistle singing happily as they left a station, and the next there was a terrible _crack _and banging and Edward's whole frame shuddered—and he cried out in pain and confusion. His driver pulled on the brake and closed the regulator valve and reverse lever, and slowly, painfully, he coasted to a stop.

Hopping down as soon as they could, both the engineers stared at the damage. Edward's right-side piston had come completely free of his forward driving wheel, and had battered the mudflange and the rails with its loose flailing end until that end had been bent into something like a J.

They looked at one another.

…

"This is ridiculous," said Lady Hatt to her husband. He threw down his napkin and glowered at her.

"Do you think I don't know that? My God, Alicia, the amount of money I'm going to have to spend before they're back to normal, not even mentioning what I'm losing in fare revenue and—"

"But you're not telling anyone? Topham, why not? This isn't just wear and tear, somebody is _sabotaging_ your railway!"

"I can't let news of this get out! Nobody would ever come and buy a ticket again!"

"News of it _will_ get out. And then you'll look as if you're covering something up, and then where will we be?"

"This is none of your concern, dear," said the Fat Controller, holding on to the remnants of his dignity with effort. "Kindly leave it to me. Everything is under control."

There were a lot of things she could say, but she didn't. When he'd gone to his study, she tiptoed into the hallway and rang up a number, looking furtive. Eventually the other end of the line was picked up, and Lady Hatt whispered some quiet instructions, and waited for them to be read back to her, and then nodded, and hung up the phone.


	4. Chapter 4

"So," said Henry, his voice hoarse and rather lower than usual, "they got you too."

Edward had had his right piston shaft—or the remains of it—removed, as soon as they had got him back to the Shed; his valve gear had been bent out of true, but the workmen were happy to see that the piston head and cylinder seemed to be all right. It would take a little while before a replacement shaft could be sent, and in the meantime he needed a new wheel, and all in all he would not be rolling for at least a week and a half. It jolly hurt.

"….they?" he managed, trying to keep his mind off the ache.

Henry's voice was dry, a little amused, but only a little. They were alone in Shed B: it was four in the morning. He knew the other engine couldn't sleep. "Whoever is clever enough to be creeping in here almost every night and doing interesting things to bits of us. I think I probably just broke down; I'm used to that. But James, no; James' safety was brand new six months ago, and from the way the kid was hurting when they brought him in I'm betting that wasn't an ordinary failure."

Edward cut his gaze sideways, at the green engine. Henry was looking less like an exploded diagram and more like a proper Black Five, but he was far from well. "I don't…" he began.

"No," Henry said, almost sadly, "you probably don't. Edward…this isn't just a load of unpleasant coincidence. You could have been really badly hurt today if they hadn't shut you down just as soon as they did. There are those out there who think we're old hat, my friend. Obsolete technology. Scrapheaps waiting to happen."

Edward blinked, forgetting his pain. "What are you saying?" Old as he was, experienced as he was, Edward had never developed a veneer of cynicism, and Henry's words shocked him to his wheelbase.

"I'm saying," said Henry, and coughed, "that this is being done on purpose."

…

Diesel had sharp ears for an engine—well, he _was_ a lot younger than most of the fleet—and he'd not been able to sleep well after the latest casualty was brought home for repairs. Sitting in the dark of the main shed he strained to hear what the sick engines were saying to one another. Henry's voice was lower than usual, rasping as if it hurt him to speak, and Edward's had jumped a little higher, as if in fear. One phrase came to him clearly in the darkness: _this is being done on purpose_.

He didn't have nice dreams for the rest of the night.

…

Perhaps luckily, the men standing in the shadows outside the Shed didn't hear the words of the engines inside; in any case, the night was uneventful. Not a creature stirred within the Shed itself, and nothing touched any of the engines. Henry watched until dawn came, and then, exhausted, slept deeply enough not to wake until the boilermakers started their work.

Gordon was the first one to the coaling plant that day, and while most of his attention was taken up by the day's work ahead, he was still slightly distracted by his worry and his wonder. There was no doubt about James' accident, and he'd overheard some of the workmen saying there was acid etching on the bent end of Edward's piston-shaft, and he had to wonder why, exactly, the Fat Controller wasn't announcing the acts as sabotage.

The coalers finished with his tender, and he rolled easily out on to the line to pick up his Express coaches. It didn't make sense, he thought: surely if he announced the attacks, then the police would come and find who was doing it, and stop them, and then everything would be perfectly ordinary and back to normal. Gordon couldn't help a little wormy sensation of cold fear and hurt: who would _do_ this to them, and why? Childish pranks were one thing, but this…well, what had happened to Henry and Edward could have been _really_ bad.

Gordon didn't generally pay much attention to the talk of the passengers as they climbed into the coaches, but this time the sharp tone of their conversation couldn't be missed. He felt himself go cold inside, despite his fire, at what he heard.

"…was stuck three days in a _row_, can you believe that? One breakdown after another. I can't believe they're still using these things on a service that calls itself an Express."

"You do know this is probably the last running steam railway in Britain? I mean, other than the little toy narrow-gauge ones in Wales and the Lake District? We're riding something of a classic."

"Yes, well, maybe there's a reason the others went over to proper diesel and electric. Bloody things are obsolete, inefficient and pollute the air."

"That's right! I got soot all over my new suit the other afternoon and did I get so much as an apology from the man driving the thing? Did I, hell."

Gordon stopped listening, with an effort. Before, his passengers—if they said anything at all—had been nothing but smiles and encouragement. They knew he was a Really Useful Engine—had pulled famous trains, held the speed record—and not once had he heard the word "obsolete." Or even "thing," applied to him or the other engines.

His driver blew the whistle as the green light showed, and Gordon chuffed out of the station, only vaguely feeling the rails beneath his wheels, or the familiar tension of his regulator. He was lost in thought, not feeling the growing discomfort in his firebox.

"Hey," said his fireman. "Look at this. All this soot."

"Maybe it's a new batch of coal." Gordon's driver bent and had a look in the firebox: there was indeed a hell of a lot of stuff lying around on top of the glowing coalfire that wasn't ordinarily there. He straightened and glanced at the steam gauge: not as high as it ought to've been. "Let's get some more heat in there. How's the draught?"

"Just like I set it, normal." The fireman had a look ahead from the footplate and blinked. "Cripes, lookit all that smoke. Gordon? You feeling all right?"

Instead of the rather neat little puffs of exhaust smoke shoved out of Gordon's funnel by spent steam, a heavier, much blacker smoke was beginning to billow out of the funnel-mouth. That definitely didn't look right.

Gordon swam out of his reverie, suddenly aware he was going slower and slower, and that it was almost impossible to breathe. He struggled ahead, starting to cough, as his fireman threw on more and more coal in an attempt to burn off the slag and get some proper heat built up; but the more coal on the fire, the worse matters got. Gordon's coughing grew worse and worse—and was soon joined by his driver's and fireman's coughing, as that black smoke swirled around the cab.

"It's no good!" the driver yelled. "Something's wrong with the coal!"

"We've got to tell the others!"

Gordon could barely think. He felt as if he were choking—and the image of Henry struggling to catch up with him, as he steamed merrily along with Henry's special coal, flashed brilliantly into his mind. _Is this how he felt?_ he thought, horrified.

"Gordon!" Both his driver and fireman, together, were calling. He tried to listen, to pay attention, even as he choked. "Can you make it to the station? We have to tell the others the coal's wrong, before anyone else gets hit!"

"I'll…..try…" Gordon coughed, and _try_ he did. Afterwards, he'd think of that short run as one of the most difficult he'd ever managed—none of his speed runs had ever cost him that much strength, or hurt that much, or left him that exhausted. But he got them there: got them in sight of the station platform, and blew an SOS on his whistle with almost the last of his steam: and watched as his fireman jumped down and ran to the station, to the telephone, to call up the depot and the coaling plant and tell them what was wrong.

_Surely_, thought Gordon as they shunted him to a siding and dumped the remains of his fire (upon which he immediately felt better), _surely this has to be made public. How can they not report this? Four engines in a row put out of commission by something that isn't just ordinary failure._ _Surely the Fat Controller will call the police, and catch whoever's doing this._

He still felt stuffed-up and sore, even with the offending coal gone: in the Shed they waited until his firebox was cool enough and then set an array of fans inside to blow out all the rest of the rubbish the bad coal had lined his flues with. This worked, but it made him cough again, and this was extremely embarrassing given that the others were _there_ and _watching him_. Gordon held on to the shreds of his dignity as far as he possibly could, not noticing that nobody was laughing at him—not even Thomas and Percy.

…

That was it for the day, really. Sir Topham Hatt had to call in BoCo and Daisy and the rest of the diesels from around the island to run the passenger and freight trains for the day; all steam was confined to the depot until clean, safe coal could be brought. In the meantime, James called a Council of War.

"So far the villains have only struck us Tender Engines," he said, importantly, "but there's no guarantee you little tank engines are safe. Today's attack could have got you too if it wasn't for Gordon's bravery."

Gordon, still feeling ill, grunted.

"—I myself was sabotaged," James continued, "_in this very shed_. None of us are safe! Who knows when the next strike is planned—"

"Get to the point," said Henry, quietly, from his shadowy siding. He was sitting perfectly still with his eyes half-shut.

"—er," James said, some of the wind taken out of him, "that is, we have to take charge! The Fat Controller isn't doing a thing about this. How many more of us have to be hurt before someone puts a stop to it?"

That got a murmur of agreement, and some rather frightened murmurs from the smaller engines. "What can we _do_?" Percy asked.

"Do?" James repeated. "Why, we…uh…we…"

"…organize a watch rota?" said the quiet voice from the shadows.

"—organize a watch rota! We'll divide the night into watches and two engines will take each watch, and sound the alarm if anything out of the ordinary happens. We won't be taken by surprise again!"

There was some ragged cheering from the Shed. For what it was worth, the engines at last felt as if someone had addressed the facts, and given them some little encouragement and protection.


End file.
